The Chicago Bears will have a tough decision to make on Justin Fields regarding his health. While some fans will want the team to sit him out until the bye week next week, Matt Eberflus has already stated that he is not looking at things this way.
In his eyes, and in the eyes of Justin Fields, if Fields is cleared, and he can practice, then he is going to play. The team took the safe route last week, but that is because he did not pass any of the medical clearance barriers.
They are not going to purposefully hold him out if they believe he can play. This will annoy some, but at the end of the day, you have to trust the team.
One thing that Matt Eberflus and Ryan Poles have done well is maintaining injuries. If anything, they are cautious to a fault with players. If a player misses just a day or two of practice, they are very unlikely to play.
The situation with Teven Jenkins stands out. He got back to practice, but on Sunday morning he was just not feeling it. They sat him out. When Jaylon Johnson had a small issue pop up late in the week, he sat out. Al-Quadin Muhammad was given extra rest, and during his first game back he played about half of the snaps compared to his normal workload.
There are countless examples of the Chicago Bears exercising caution when it comes to injuries. To think that they would be overly cautious with Muhammad, then throw out Fields to get hurt would be stunning.
So, if the Chicago Bears do play Justin Fields, you have to trust that the decision came from plenty of high-ranking medical officials approving him. You have to assume that plenty of thought and care went into this decision.
Everything the team has done to this point deserves the benefit of the doubt when talking about Injuries. They have never once thrown a player out there too early or pushed a player to play when he was on the line. In fact, no player even close to playing has been able to suit for the Chicago Bears.
They have not been perfect, but one area that they have done well at is understanding how to return players from injury.